The piece talks about software companies having their asses sued for being economical with the truth about their products boosting brain power. Hmm, wonder if the TrumpistaBrexiteers have been investing in such software?

Plenty of activity in the studio at the moment – I’m about about a third of the way into a new ambient instrumental album, with another couple of instrumental pieces on the back burner. Where’s a lottery win when you need to buy more time?

Verbally led relaxation exercises are a good way to achieve a relaxed state of mind and a healthy state of body – which is why they are often used in situations such as antenatal classes. According toresearch in the German Medical Association’s journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, however, music therapy has been found to be even more effective in improving the health of palliative care patients. Medical Daily cites that music of all sorts was reported by patients as boosting levels of relaxation and well-being. The self-reports were corroborated by researchers using physiological measurements in a double-blind trial.

I saw a bit of Sir Alan’s “You’re fired” nonsense the other night. Frankly, I’m perplexed. Surely if people want to watch this, it’d be just as quick to put a mirror over the toilet seat and peer down as you squat over it.

Proponents of hainvg two sleeps a night with a period of wakefulness between, say it’s a great way of getting things done – everything from writing a bestseller, to learning a language, making babies or getting closer to your God.

One of the problems of this segmented sleep approach, though, is that you have to go to bed earlier and will probably end up rising later. There may not be enough hours in the day (or night). If you end up cutting your total sleep-time you’ll not only build up sleep-debt, but you’ll also end up interrupting what sleep you do get, and that leads to all sorts of problems, chief among which according to new research is the dampening of feelings of positive emotions.

Hot from the iTunes visualizer window: The latest YouTube music video is posted here. It’s also available on SoundCloud in higher quality audio.

What’s it about? It was a commission for a birthday present. On SoundCloud it’s described as: Take a dash of Ska rhythmic structure, season with variations of Beethoven’s Für Elise, add some Two Tone West Midlands homage, top with selected character traits and you have a piece written for and about someone for their birthday.

On YouTube it’s described thusly: A bit of Beethoven, a sprinkling of Ska structure, seasoned with the essence of a real person – Happy Birthday H. Cooked with Logic Pro X instruments, Alchemy, Native Instruments and Roland Integra-7.

Everyone likes to think they have plenty of grey matter, as it correlates with heightened abilities in many skills, and it seems that being a practising musician or meditator will build that stuff in your brain. Science.Mic cites Massachusetts General Hospital research which suggests that while nothing is a universal panacea “Meditation is like a super-vitamin for your brain. It targets and boosts the parts that are already strong, and improves their functionality to make them even stronger.” As an added bonus “when people began meditating, their amygdala got smaller. That is the area of the brain most closely associated with fear and aggression”